Curtain falls on cricket selectors’ tour opera

Over Rs 40 million spent on foreign frolics in two years:

by Callistus Davy

A merry-go-round by Sri Lankan cricket selectors that went on for years almost unstoppable has been brought to a screeching end after it was realised millions of rupees had been busted on foreign jaunts.

The ruling means the coach and captain on tour will be entrusted with the task of deciding on players in consultation with the selectors who will have to function from their home desks and not permitted to accompany teams.

The selector-on-tour syndrome unfurled into a roaring business over the past 15 years until it was realised by the new Sri Lanka Cricket administration that a whopping Rs.42 million had been spent to maintain them during a two-year period alone.

But in-house Sri Lanka Cricket investigators put the figure in excess of Rs.50 million invested on them over the two-year period.

Sri Lankan cricket selectors are known for their frolics to take turns or play what some call a game of musical chairs drawing up their annual calendar and picking their favourite countries with the most influential of them pocketing the exotic five, England, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa and the Caribbean destinations sometimes spending up to two months or more with the players.

Sri Lanka Cricket (SLC) now contends that better results can be produced by not having selectors embedded with the team on foreign tours in an age when every aspect of play can be scrutinized on television from anywhere in the world.

“We felt it (selector on tour) does not serve any purpose”, said SLC secretary Mohan de Silva.

“When needed the coach and captain will now have to consult the selectors from wherever they are and make decisions. In the past decisions taken (by the selectors) had not been implemented and so we might as well leave the matter in the hands of the tour management to consult the chairman of selectors”.

The selectors were also entitled to daily allowances in dollars besides expenses for five-star hotel accommodation and the coziest of transportation to venues.

Some of them exploited the opportunities to promote their personal business deals while on tour with the Sri Lanka team.

Former Sri Lanka batsman Marvan Atapattu once branded the selectors a “set of muppets led by a joker” during a tour of Australia in 2007 in a post match news conference.

While the coach and captain face the music in the aftermath of defeats and debacles on tour, the selectors who contributed to it get off scot-free and do not even face the Press when the team returns.

Their decisions to axe or omit players have often been infallible to them with none asked to explain their actions in public.

Sri Lanka has lost more matches with a selector on tour than without one prior to the scramble.